“I’d love to hear more, but I’m freezing my butt off.”
He chuckled, the sound almost enough to warm her. “Let’s get you back inside.”
She stayed just long enough to check the readouts, but exhaustion from the day’s ordeal caught up with her. Thor walked with her back to her room at the station, where she thanked him and wished him a good night. Then she brushed her teeth and crawled into bed. The last image in her mind as she drifted off was of Thor staring up at the stars.
7
Thor sat in the sauna’s heat with Jones, Vasily, Hardin, and Kristi, the station nurse, all of them naked apart from their towels, their boots waiting outside the door. The warmth felt incredible after the day’s frigid cold, loosening stiff muscles, releasing endorphins, making Thor sweat.
He had spent the day with Samantha at the Dark Sector lab, reading journal articles about the SPT and watching as she recycled the refrigerators that kept the telescope’s detectors cold enough to maintain the necessary sensitivity. The technology fascinated him. But now it was time for something completely different, something more up his alley—pitting himself against the elements.
Segal had volunteered to stay indoors to keep a watch on the package. “Go freeze your balls off if you want. I’ve had enough cold on this mission.”
A small crowd was waiting outside the sauna for them to exit, drop their towels, put on their boots, and head outside to the Pole marker and back.
Vasily scratched his hairy chest. “We Russians have a long history of thebanya—what you callsauna. It keeps men healthy and strong.”
“Not just men,” Kristi replied.
Thor hadn’t missed the way she’d been looking at Jones.
“You Americans have so many women here. In winter, we have no women.”
“How very evolved of you.” Jones met Kristi’s gaze.
Nå, for helvede.
Well, damn.
The attraction was mutual.
Thor hoped Jones had the sense not to get distracted. They hadn’t come here to get laid. Their mission was to bring the Golden Horde technology back to the US and keep Samantha—Dr. Park—safe in the meantime.
Speaking of distracted…
Thor was fascinated by Samantha’s explanation of how she used differences in the Cosmic Microwave Background to map distant galaxy clusters. He didn’t fully understand the science, but he got the basic principles. Samantha had come alive while talking about her work, her pretty face lighting up, her reserve falling away.
“Am I boring you?” she’d asked.
“Not at all.” He admired both her expertise and her passion.
As far as Thor was concerned, intelligence was fucking sexy.
“Hey, Viking.” Jones elbowed Thor, bringing him back to the present. “Kristi asked where you got that big scar on your thigh.”
“I fell on my own knife while on the sea ice in Northeastern Greenland as part of Sirius Dogsled Patrol.” It had been a stupid accident, a tumble on his skis that had cost them hours of travel and put him at risk for infection. “I had to suture it myself.”
Kristi studied it. “It looks like you did a good job. What are those scars on your wrists and forearms?”
“Dog bites.” It had been a hazard of the job. “When one of the females on the sled team goes into heat, the males fight each other. I had to break it up.”
“Ouch!”
“I have heard of this Sirius,” Vasily said. “You are Danish then, yes?”
Thor met the man’s gaze. “Yes.”
Someone knocked on the door. “It’s time!”